Monday, August 22, 2016

I had originally planned to post this unedited audio recording of the panel in conjunction with an article I wanted to have posted at Tangent Online the same day as the panel, and the text transcription of the audio. I now feel it is in the best interests of all parties to post the audio now, with the article and text transcription to follow as soon as I can get to it.

I had made notes for the article I wanted to have posted here, so brought them to the panel in their rough state, crossouts, arrows moving pieces around, written in thoughts in pen, the usual rough draft of any document. I did not intend to use anywhere near all of them but knew from experience that having too much material is better than having too little. As it turned out, the only item I used directly from these notes was the quote from David Hartwell.

It's easy to see understand why they kicked him out. They really had no choice after he began singing "Horst Wessel Lied", then threatened to whip NK Jemisin until she agreed to pick his cotton. Outrageous!

The panicked reaction to Truesdale's recording illustrates why you must always record SJWs. When you've got a recording, they can't convincingly lie about what they said or what you said. Keep in mind, as you listen to this, that Truesdale is accused of having caused "excessive discomfort" with his words, which was the grounds for his expulsion.

Don't know about Finland, but it's a real pity that California (the following Worldcon) is a all parties consent state like Washington. Then again, no one may care very much about Worldcons and Hugos two years from now.

In my experience, panels are almost universally mind-numbingly boring unless a compelling author hijacks it to tell interesting stories. So somebody starts a conversation that people are actually passionate about...!!! OMG, kick him out!

Vox, that quote from Hartwell that Truesdale read was excellent. Once the transcript is available, I'd like to know your comments in response to it.

What these idiots don't realize is that we don't want them to stop writing whatever they want to write. We don't care what they are writing, with all the inanities and perversions and what not. Just don't keep us from writing and reading the stuff that WE want to write and read.

I don't know much outside Florida but one party two party doesn't matter for an event with no seeming privacy. If against convention rules that would give the blanket, except they threw that out the window when they stated reasons. This serves as forget legal term.

@19 thanks, IDM seems to be compatible with Vivaldi.@20 exactly, this provides yet another opportunity to splinter SJW's a bit - might be interesting to push on Charlie Stross to either explain or defend the no-platforming, for example, since he likes to pose as a logical guy.

Verne wrote:Good God what sort of pansies sees that discussion as causing "excessive discomfort"? They proved by their own actions that every word he said was true.These are the people who claim ownership of the Hugo brand, living in their own special world.I have no interest in making nicey-nice with these bozos. At one time, I thought the Hugo actually meant something, like the Nobel prizes. Now, however, the scales have fallen from my eyes.

@22 Unlikely it would work. Remember that if Stross were to be seen defending Truesdale in any degree he could instantly be expelled from the SJW tribe.

That's why the "big dogs" like GRRM, Stross, and Scalzi will claim to talk to or debate anyone, but never will take on someone like Vox or Cernovich. One simple slip-up, just one, after a lifetime of boot licking the SJW narrative can mean instant expulsion. Being excluded is arguably what the SJWs fear most.

Pseudotsuga wrote:Verne wrote:Good God what sort of pansies sees that discussion as causing "excessive discomfort"? They proved by their own actions that every word he said was true.

These are the people who claim ownership of the Hugo brand, living in their own special world.

I have no interest in making nicey-nice with these bozos. At one time, I thought the Hugo actually meant something, like the Nobel prizes. Now, however, the scales have fallen from my eyes.

At One time winning a Hugo ment the story was a good one if not great. I read the winners almost religiously. Then long before the puppies came about, all that changed. The award is meaningless. I run into better SF/FI for free on Amazon

@27@22 Unlikely it would work. Remember that if Stross were to be seen defending Truesdale in any degree he could instantly be expelled from the SJW tribe.

Yes, and yet Stross does like to pose as rational, sincere, above the fray, and so forth. So pushing on him regarding no-platforming as in "What, exactly, justifies this?" either flushes him out as more of an SJW than he cares to admit, or it pushes him into a corner where he can be in trouble with the warren.

It's almost as those such no-platforming events can be used as a Xanatos Gambit.

@2 - California's law covers "confidential communication". In a situation like this, it's hard to argue that a meeting is "confidential" or that participants had a reasonable expectation of privacy. A one-to-one interaction with an SJW? Consult a lawyer (http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law).

Is this more for less discomfort than you would get by being raped by an illegal immigrant? More or less discomfort than being thrown off a tall building for being of a certain sexual orientation? More or less discomfort than having your head sawn off for being an unbeliever or apostate?

I find it interesting that SJWs are always trying to intimidate people into not recording them. Sort of like asshole cops. They know that normal people, if they knew what was going on, would not support them.

OK so I just got to the end of the audio. What did Truesdale say to get expelled? I suppose he triggered some snowflake with his comments about snowflakes clutching their pearls? They proved his point!

Haven't had a chance to hear the audio yet (traveling), but one quasi-credible criticism I heard was that this statement wasn't appropriate for a moderator (as opposed to a panelist.) Now that the audio is out, any substance to that objection?

Assuming part of the purpose is to get along, which may not have been the case, it may be that this was to a degree planned as propaganda of the deed - his initial statement was simply too long. Two to five minutes would have sufficed to annoy those who needed annoying and frame the rest of the discussion.

Astrosmith wrote:OK so I just got to the end of the audio. What did Truesdale say to get expelled? I suppose he triggered some snowflake with his comments about snowflakes clutching their pearls? They proved his point!

If I were Truesdale I would consider the expulsion mission accomplished. It shows just how incapable they are of dealing with other points of view.

Also say that Alyssa Wong is claiming she was harassed. She claims fans harassed her at Wiscon and were disciplined there and then harassed her again at world con. When reading her account of what happened it's easy to see most of it is her overacting to what is likely innocent behavior that she took the wrong way. If anything it sounds like her and her friends were the ones engaging in physical abuse of her "harassers".

"Haven't had a chance to hear the audio yet (traveling), but one quasi-credible criticism I heard was that this statement wasn't appropriate for a moderator (as opposed to a panelist.) Now that the audio is out, any substance to that objection?"

He sounded like he was more interested in making his small presentation with his pearls instead of getting to his point, which he phrased fairly clumsily and was interrupted well-before reaching the meat of it. If, perhaps, he wasn't so clumsy about it, it might have been better received, especially if he couched what he was saying in more conceptual terms, rather than using language that he knew would inflame certain listeners in the audience. That being said, there does not seem to be any element of abuse in what he was saying, nor did it really last all that long, not did the panel become out of control.

The most contentious that it actually became was an exchange between Neil Clarke and a fan in the audience, when Clarke attempted to make a point about the field in general becoming more tolerant and the fan objecting that Clarke's behavior toward the moderator when he objected to the moderator's presentation was intolerant. Clarke did not appreciate the remark and there was a hostile and louder exchange between the two that followed.

Overall, however, I don't hear anything there that would seem to warrant expulsion from the entire convention, though it is possible, of course, that the moderator committed violations that we do not know about.

@37 This person became full editor in 2004 when Dozois retired but I bet her fingerprints were all over the 'zine before then. I can't remember when I gave up on IASFM as fit to read, but it was sometime around 2000.

Several points. Truesdale actually talks very little, its mostly some women who rambles on endlessly and a couple other people who seem to disagree with Truesdale. I skipped around a lot because most of these people are very boring.

I'm a little slow, but I just realized Neil Clarke is the Clarkesworld guy. I have to say he's truly a go-to on the current state of SF short fiction. I've never read anything in Clarkesworld I could stomach. I think the only thing I finished was Nebula-winning (?) story "Spar" which is the sort of thing that gives tentacle porn a bad name. I tried a couple of other items (there was a one-gag piece about Moby Clit and some alt-history about Himmler's grandson looking at Jew porn on the internet) and decided I really didn't need to read Clarkesworld any more.

Has Clarkesworld published anything remotely readable? Because if it represents typical SF short fiction, then SF is in very bad shape.

He had one good joke - that he tried to stretch into three books. Only the first was mildly entertaining. He couldn't resist bashing straight, white men long enough to finish the three unmolested.

Howard Tayler's recommendation of Jim C Hine's "princess" books who's marketing descriptions make me cringe without even opening the covers - and my reaction to the Goblin books - are why, despite my deep and abiding appreciation for Schlock Mercenary, I refuse to pay attention to any reading or movie recommendations of his.

Tayler and Kowal are linked by, among other things, "Writing Excuses" - a podcast which I used to unreservedly recommend until MRK came on. This was well before I discovered what a piece of work she was re: the whole bikini affair, and deniably referring to Pournelle as one of twelve rabid weasels who should just hurry up and die. The downgrading was almost entirely because with the limited time format, MRK didn't bring any really new insights, and adding a fourth cut down on depth that Howard, Brandon, etc. used to go to within the 15 minutes, making the whole show a lot shallower and less useful / interesting. It's also gotten a lot more PC in both topic and viewpoint.

It went from a short show that would bring on people like Larry and would explore one small topic in insightful depth to a shallow mockery of its former self - and less timely as they recorded more and more episodes in one chunk.

I think it is true to a certain degree that Truesdale does hijack the panel -- only from the point of view that his idea of what a panel on the "State of Short Fiction" obviously differs from what the other panelists were expecting to talk about. This is a fault of the venu by not having a more defined outline of what will be discussed.

That said, nothing at all in the discussion rises to the level where someone should have been kicked out of Worldcon. There isn't any raised voices or excessive profanity or even any really out there Alt-Right viewpoints discussed. Sheila Williams comes off as intelligent and on-topic for the topic Truesdale presented.

It seems like this is a situation where clearly the Worldcon presenters are totally in the wrong and at fault for not trying to define what the panel will be about and the topics that we're going to be discussed. I think they owe him an apology and a refund for sure, as well as an invitation to speak again in the future.

Bear Brubaker wrote:I think it is true to a certain degree that Truesdale does hijack the panel -- only from the point of view that his idea of what a panel on the "State of Short Fiction" obviously differs from what the other panelists were expecting to talk about. This is a fault of the venu by not having a more defined outline of what will be discussed.

It seems like this is a situation where clearly the Worldcon presenters are totally in the wrong and at fault for not trying to define what the panel will be about...

Ex-Pro Guest here. Usually it's the Moderator's job to set up the content of a panel, once the subject is selected by the con committee. There are all sorts of variations. First the topic is chosen, months before the con, and they pick a Mod and the Panelists from their long list of responding Pro Guests (which incidentally also depends on schedule conflicts). Then either a committee member or the Mod writes up the blurb for the Program books. This is done weeks ahead of time.

The Mod then contacts the other panelists ahead of time, in theory, to go over what they want to talk about. In reality most Mods and Panelists just show up and wing it, maybe 80% of the time. Short SFF is a 'bread & butter' topic, so that's probably what they did in this case, especially if the Panelists were all experienced Pro Guests.

Tired of reading, seeing, and smelling all those intolerant, pearl-clutching SJWs in short SFF? Want hear a little something different, something dangerous, something perhaps... entriggering? Will the virtuous signal their virtuous virtue? Will salty tears flow in copious quantity? Join us for a rousing good time at WorldCon 2016, where you can watch the badfeelz drama unfold right before your eyes. Moderator: Dave Trusdale, with special guest appearances by Worldcon Security

"More than just the magazines, short fiction is in a golden age, found in the magazine, online, in anthologies, and chapbooks. The field's editors come together to talk about what they are seeing, and debate whether there is a short fiction renaissance. "

More than just the magazines, short fiction is in a dark age, found in the magazine[s] (sic), online, in anthologies, and chapbooks. The field's editors come together to create a violation of the Narrative, point and shriek, isolate and swarm, reject and transform, press for surrender, appeal to an amenable authority, hold a show trial, and enjoy a victory parade online.

Spartacus xxxxx wrote:The Mod then contacts the other panelists ahead of time, in theory, to go over what they want to talk about. In reality most Mods and Panelists just show up and wing it, maybe 80% of the time. Short SFF is a 'bread & butter' topic, so that's probably what they did in this case, especially if the Panelists were all experienced Pro Guests.

1) Why Castalia House must succeed, and 2) Why I desire to be a published Castalia House author.

Scalzi's tries to attack Vox Day and tries to defend this year's Hugo Awards without realizing what the problems really are. His attack on Vox Day and Theodore Beale are weak when you consider that neither Vox Day, Theodore Beale nor Castalia House needs the WorldCon, the Hugo Awards, or even a mention on Scalzi's blog.

McRapey misunderstands the influence exerted by Vox Day or Theodore Beale. While Vox/Theodore goes along building something for the Science Fiction community and us writers left out in the cold by the big five publishers and Tor Books, Scalzi's tries to make the issue about something it is really not about and attacks Vox Day and Theodore Beale instead of defending Science Fiction, both as a fan and a professional.

Scalzi's claims in his additional thoughts (first blog comment) that

"the Hugo administers should also just simply note that they reserve the right to discard ballots that show obvious signs of slating"

And

"Likewise, as we have two years of clear evidence that Beale basically uses the slate as cheap advertising for his micro-press, I wonder it it’s time for the Hugo administrators to have the conversation about simply banning the press and/or any press Beale has fiduciary interest in. Obviously manipulating a ballot for your own business interests, and whether it should be allowed, is pretty clearly to me a thing worth discussing."

So, Scalzi wants the Hugo admins to discard any ballot that he does not agree with? And he wants ban Vox Day, Theodore Beale, and Castalia House from being considered for any Hugo Awards? And yet he does not really give any evidence that Vox Day or Theodore Beale are manipulating the awards for any business interests.

1) Why Castalia House must succeed, and 2) Why I desire to be a published Castalia House author.

You know what? Screw it, I'm going to finish my second novel and pitch it to Castalia House. I'm going to do my part to make SF/F great again. Someone out there will enjoy my stories, and that's all that matters.

When Vox decides to run his own con, I'll help. I truly wouldn't even know where to begin with something like thay and don't have the connections to make it happen. But I'd help someone who did. "Non-convergence Con... non-con?"

I was an avid sci-fi/fantasy reader, but the audio touches on something that caused me to drop this literature from my reading list. It's not original after a certain point. As a result, authors have to bring in more and more topical issues to keep the field alive. This invites SJW crap.

I wonder that the publication of thousands and thousands of works every year, there is any space left for original storytelling.

Maybe I have a short attention span, but I was bored to death by Game of Thrones by the second season. Porn is terribly boring after a certain age and I always thought the series represented a "proper, respectable" version of the porn that you can find on Breitbart in the ads sections. I even tried to read the first book but found McRapey to be dull as a writer. I've more or less stuck with classics or technical literature for the past few years.